Compelling Evidence Mounts Regarding FaceTime Camera on iPad 2

If a leaked home screen placeholder image found in yesterday’s iOS 4.3 Beta 2 developer build is any indication, next-gen iPad is sure to have a forward-facing camera utilized for video conferencing, video recording and fun video effects.

MacRumors discovered this new image in the latest iOS build, pointing out it inadvertently leaked Apple’s internal development while adding fuel to the long-standing speculation regarding a FaceTime-enabled iPad.

iOS superimposes transparent home screen image over your current wallpaper selection in the Settings app so you can preview the mockup before applying changes. The image has been updated in iOS 4.3 and now depicts three new app icons – Camera, FaceTime and PhotoBooth – as seen on the screenshot included in this piece.

While the Camera app is most likely a blown-up version of its counterpart on the iPhone and iPod touch, both FaceTime and PhotoBooth apps file as standalone ports from Mac OS X.

The former program should facilitate FaceTime video calling between other iDevices and Macs while the latter pertains to Apple’s amusing application that lets you take images and videos of yourself and jazz them up with real-time video effects.

Although neither FaceTime nor PhotoBooth apps are found installed in the developer build of iOS 4.3, the leaked home screen image lends some credence to the rumor-mill which has been calling for the FaceTime-enabled iPad for months. If the PhotoBooth app does exist – and there’s no reason to believe otherwise at this point – than iOS 4.3 might add Quartz Composition filters that in Mac OS X take care of hardware-assisted image and video effects rendering in real-time.